John Piper Quotes

But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life.

~ John Piper

All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God.

~ John Piper

But to enjoy him we must know him. Seeing is savoring. If he remains a blurry, vague fog, we may be intrigued for a season. But we will not be stunned with joy, as when the fog clears and you find yourself on the brink of some vast precipice.

~ John Piper

When this world totally fails, the ground for joy remains.

~ John Piper

Enjoyment of Jesus is not like icing on the cake, it’s like powder in the shell.

~ John Piper

In other words, when all the supports of human life and earthly happiness are taken away, God will be our delight, our joy. This experience is humanly impossible. No ordinary person can speak in truth like this. If God alone is enough to support joy when all else is lost, it is a miracle of grace.

~ John Piper

Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires. Our chief end is to glorify God, the great Object. We do so most fully when we treasure him, desire him, delight in him so supremely that we let goods and kindred go and display his love to the poor and the lost.

~ John Piper

There would be no obstacles to overcome. We won’t fight for joy in heaven. But we are not there yet.

~ John Piper

If we were perfect—if there were no remaining corruption in our hearts—there would be no fight. There would be no obstacles to overcome. We won’t fight for joy in heaven. But we are not there yet.

~ John Piper

The Word frees us from smallness of mind (1 Kings 4:29) and from threatening confinements (Psalm 18:19).

~ John Piper

Imagination is the faculty of the mind that God has given us to make the communication of his beauty beautiful.

~ John Piper

In other words, all the highest aims of language are decisively the work of God. They are decisively supernatural. And no amount of poetic effort or expertise in the use of words can bring about the great aims of life if God withholds his saving power.

~ John Piper

...we should all fortify ourselves against the dark hours of depression by cultivating a deep distrust of the certainties of despair. Despair is relentless in the certainties of its pessimism. But we have seen again and again, from our own experience and others', that absolute statements of hopelessness that we make in the dark are notoriously unreliable. Our dark certainties are not sureties.

~ John Piper

Most of your unhappiness in life comes from the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself.

~ John Piper

DOING is often God's remedy for despair.

~ John Piper

Absolute statements of our unbelief that we make in the darkness are notoriously unreliable.

~ John Piper

When something drops into your life that seems to threaten your future, remember this: the first shockwaves of the bomb are not sin. The real danger is yielding to them. Giving in. Putting up no spiritual fight. And the root of that surrender is unbelief - a failure to fight for faith in future grace. A failure to cherish all that God promises to be for us in Jesus.

~ John Piper

I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person's theology was the effect it has on one's prayers.

~ John Piper

God aims to exalt himself by working for those who wait for him. Prayer is the essential activity of waiting for God: acknowledging our helplessness and his power, calling upon him for help, seeking his counsel.

~ John Piper

By nature, we get more pleasure from God's gifts then from Himself.

~ John Piper

O, how easy it is to do religious things if other people are watching! Preaching, praying, attending church, reading the bible, acts of kindness and charity-they all take on a certain pleasantness of the ego if we know that others will find out about them and think well of us. It is a deadly addiction for esteem that we have.

~ John Piper

The most precious gifts you can think of are not ends in themselves. They all lead to God. Ultimately, that is what all His gifts are for.

~ John Piper

Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy

~ John Piper

What is love for, if not to intensify our affections—both in life and death? But, O, do not be bitter. It is tragically self-destructiveto be bitter.

~ John Piper

Jesus - “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

~ John Piper

When God appoints the gospel of his Son as the universal remedy for the guilt and corruption of mankind, and we diminish that, the gospel is diminished. And you cannot diminish the gospel without being diminished yourself.

~ John Piper

The Bible says he was raised not just after the blood-shedding, but by it. This means that what the death of Christ accomplished was so full and so prefect that the resurrection was the reward and vindication of Christ's achievement in death.

~ John Piper

A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn't know Clark Kent is on board.

~ John Piper

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5–6)

~ John Piper

God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.

~ John Piper

Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper His people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man’s business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel.

~ John Piper

Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy.

~ John Piper

Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy - because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) - is the clearest display of the worth of God in our lives. Therefore, faith-filled suffering is essential in this world for the most intense, authentic worship. When we are most satisfied with God in suffering, he will be most glorified in us in worship. Our problem is not styles of music. Our problem is styles of life. When we embrace more affliction for the worth of Christ, there will be more fruit in the worship of Christ.

~ John Piper

The call of Christ is a call to live a life of sacrifice and loss and suffering--a life that would be foolish to live if there were no resurrection from the dead.

~ John Piper

If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.

~ John Piper

The only freedom that lasts comes from pursuing what we want when we want what we ought.

~ John Piper

Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.

~ John Piper

A godly life is lived out of an astonished heart—a heart that is astonished at grace.

~ John Piper

What then do we learn from Paul's unbroken pattern of beginning and ending his letters this way (Grace be to you. Grace be with you.)? We learn that grace is an unmistakable priority in the Christian life. We learn that it is from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, but that it can come through people. We learn that grace is ready to flow to us every time we take up the inspired Scriptures to read them. And we learn that grace will abide with us when we lay the Bible down and go about our daily living. In other words, we learn that grace is not merely a past reality but a future one. Every time I reach for the Bible, God's grace is a reality that will flow to me. Every time I put the Bible down and go about my business, God's grace will go with me. This is what I mean by future grace.

~ John Piper

God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn't. Copper will do.

~ John Piper